


Benched

by engmaresh



Series: Baavira Week/end [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Baavira Weekend, F/M, Fluff, Fluff Bingo Quarter 2, Humor, Romance, Sickfic, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/engmaresh
Summary: “Move,” Kuvira demanded. "I'm sick too."Uniters don't make good patients.





	Benched

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Baaviraweekend Day 1, _sick day_.  
> And for the [gentle] square on my fluff bingo.

Baatar woke to the mattress dipping under his side when Kuvira tried to crawl into next to him.

“Wuh-wuh-what are you doing?” he asked, the word stuttering under a yawn. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Kuvira shuffled forward on her knees, edging him up against the wall. It was a single bunk, with barely enough room for him to stretch out. They’d fit before, but not without a lot of maneuvering that Baatar hardly felt up to now.

“Move,” Kuvira demanded, dropping a pillow on his face. He batted it aside, and squinted up at her. His glasses were on the little shelf next to the bed, but Kuvira was in the way, blocking the what sparse light shone through the window so that he couldn’t even make out the vague outlines of her face.

“You’ll get sick—”

She shook her head, the dark shape of her unbound hair curling out like inky tendrils in the grey room. “I have it too.” And now Baatar noticed the scratchy quality to her voice, the heat radiating through the thin trousers she wore to bed where her thighs were pressed up against his side.

“You should see Doctor Seiji,” he told her.

“Already been,” Kuvira muttered as she lowered herself next to him. “She made me drink that vile stuff.” She shifted and accidentally kneed him in the gut. “Move over, will you?”

“I would love to,” Baatar said tightly, “but the bunk’s only this big. Why don’t you go back to your own cabin?”

“M’cold.”

He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Not quite burning up, but possibly getting there if the medication didn’t do its thing. Or maybe that was his own fever, it was really hard to tell.

Closing his eyes again, he let Kuvira shift him around to her satisfaction, until she had him right how she wanted. Aligned back to front, her head tucked under his chin, she radiated heat against his chest. He opened his eyes briefly to brush her hair out of his mouth, then found his arm commandeered as a blanket of sorts, pulled over her waist and pinned there with her own.

“You’re snuggly.”

“M’sick. Get the blanket, will you?”

It had been kicked to the foot of the bed, requiring him to extricate his arm from Kuvira’s grip in order to retrieve it. She whined at the loss, but was happy enough to accept the blanket as a replacement. He placed his arm down over it, already in need of some cool night air against his skin. With Kuvira sweltering against him, he was probably going to end up sweating out the fever overnight.

“You did see Seiji, yeah?”

“Yes,” Kuvira hissed. She twisted round and breathed in his face. Baatar wrinkled his nose at her stale breath, but could smell on it the pungent-sweet trace of monkshead fruit, Seiji’s “vile stuff”. It was a common fever and cold remedy that every Earth Kingdom citizen was familiar with, but like most medicines, it tasted pretty nasty.

“Okay, good,” Baatar murmured. All he heard in response was Kuvira’s deep raspy breathing. He could feel the faint echo of her heartbeat against his chest, just a microsecond out of step with his own.

He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

+

When Baatar woke again, the sun was already shining through the window, filling his cabin with light. Kuvira was breathing stertorously against his neck, her hot breath washing over his clavicle. He felt sticky and sweaty, but more clear-headed than he had in days.

Pressing his lips to her hair was a bad idea; he immediately regretted it when he had to blow sweat-damp strands out of his mouth. He then sat up, carefully extricating himself from Kuvira’s clammy grip without accidentally rolling her off the bunk. The blanket peeled away disgustingly damp, and he kicked it to the floor.

Whining slightly, Kuvira groped around for her missing cover and in absence of it, tugged his pillow out from under his head and pulled it over her shoulders.

“So you’re awake,” Baatar observed. He plucked his glasses from the shelf and put them on, then carefully climbed over her and out of the bunk. The metal floor was an icy shock to his overheated body, and he winced, shifting his weight to the tips of his toes.

“Hnnn,” Kuvira grumped, then took advantage of the extra space to roll over into the warm spot he’d left behind, taking the sheet and both pillows with her.

Leaving her be, Baatar tiptoed into the head. Splashing cold water into his face went a long way in making him feel human again, though a shower would help too. Walking back out, he cracked open a window and filled a glass with water from the pitcher on his desk. He took a deep drink, watching the dunes of the Si Wong desert zip by outside, then refilled it and carried it over to the bunk.

Meanwhile Kuvira had rolled herself into a spring roll, only her long dark hair spilling out from the top.

“Hey,” he said gently, crouching down next to her and placing the glass on the floor. He started to unwrap her from the sheet. “How are you feeling?”

Kuvira emerged, nose twitching like a badgermole’s, eyes narrowed against the light. “Disgusting.” She pulled her arms free, then yanked away the neck of her tank top, sniffed and made a face. “I reek.” She sniffed at him. “You reek.”

“Time for a shower.” Baatar handed her the glass of water, then rose and pulled his shirt over his head. He shivered a little even in the sunlight and the warm air of the room. Not quite rid of the fever yet, it seemed.

Kuvira stumbled to her feet, snatching about in the air until he held out his arm. She grabbed his hand and reeled herself in, tucking her face into his shoulder. Swaying into him, she was still clammy and feverish, but no longer burning up as fiercely as the night before. She snuffled, burying her face in his armpit.

“You just said I reek.”

Kuvira ignored him, burrowing deeper. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Turn off the lights. My head hurts.”

“That’s the sun.”

“Close the damn blinds.”

Baatar reached under the heavy mess of her hair, gently massaging the nape of her neck. She mmmed, melting a little into him. He rested his cheek on her head. “Shower first.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing Kuvira's hair in this. Made me think of Sandra Oh's for some reason.


End file.
